Greek Complexity

How emoji conquered the world

Excerpt: "In 1995, sales of pagers were booming among Japan’s teenagers, and NTT Docomo’s decision to add the heart symbol to its Pocket Bell devices let high school kids across the country inject a new level of sentiment (and cuteness) into the millions of messages they were keying into telephones every day. Docomo was thriving, with a bona fide must-have gadget on its hands and market share in the neighborhood of 40 percent. But when new versions of the Pocket Bell abandoned the heart symbol in favor of more business-friendly features like kanji and Latin alphabet support, the teenagers that made up Docomo’s core customer base had no problem leaving for upstart competitor Tokyo Telemessage. By the time Docomo realized it had misjudged the demand for business-focused pagers, it was badly in need of a new killer app. What it came up with was emoji."

More here: http://www.theverge.com/2013/3/4/3966140/how-emoji-conquered-the-world

This is an auto-generated post from my reading list courtesy IFTTT. See http://ifttt.com

Rumor: Google negotiating $1 billion acquisition of WhatsApp

Excerpt: "Messaging app WhatsApp is in the negotiating phase over prices with Google in what could be Google’s next billion dollar acquisition, according to an inside source."

More here: http://www.digitaltrends.com/social-media/google-acquiring-whatsapp/

This is an auto-generated post from my reading list courtesy IFTTT. See http://ifttt.com

Infographic of stats on mobile apps in India

Quite a lot of interesting stats here. Would be interesting to see how some of these data points have evolved over recent years. I also wonder how many Indian app users are on 3G vs 2G vs WiFi. Conversations I have had with industry players suggest that cellular data is still not the primary medium.

Much more here.

(via TechInAsia)

Heavenly networker Pertino pockets $20m to take on Cisco Meraki

Interesting piece from my reading list. Not written by me.

Excerpt: "If you want to take on Cisco Systems in the nascent cloud networking-as-a-service market, you are going to need money. Lots of money."

More here: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/03/07/pertino_sdn_nabs_funding/

This is an auto-generated post courtesy IFTTT. See http://ifttt.com .

Best mobile banking app?

I just saw a video demo of Krungsri aka Bank of Ayudhya's mobile banking app. It's the best mobile banking app I've ever seen by far. Not just about bank balances and branch locations like the typical banking app, but also transfers, shopping, stock brokerage services, rewards redemption, bill payments, reminders, social features, and so on and so forth. Some of this is even available to non-Krungsri customers. The only thing that detracts from their effort is that they only support smartphones (maybe only iPhones).

This may all sound obvious, possibly even a little "so what?" depending on how cynical you are -- but my experience with other mobile banking apps (if an app even exists for your bank) has been complete c**p, even in supposedly advanced Singapore. Other banks' apps I've seen may:

• provide pretty basic bank balance type info
• use the mobile phone purely as a channel for poorly thought through "promotions"
• pretend that they're a fun social networking app that people will enjoy using, not realizing that consumers look to banks for functionality not fun
• have such poor user flow that frustrated consumers uninstall them immediately

Both regional and global banks are guilty of the above.

Youtube should have a video of Krungsri's app that shows you what I found so admirable about it in comparison to the above all-too-common faults in other banks' approaches.

The presenter of the demo pointed out that their approach was to take a marketing approach from the beginning, rather than IT. The focus was on user experience, which doesn't mean pretty graphics but imagining what a customer, whether a young student, a high net worth individual or anyone else might need and delivering that simply. Technology considerations (and the inevitable arguments with the IT department) came later.

Clearly they know what they're doing.

Update: This is the demo I saw.

VimpelCom deal with MS and Nokia

The FT reports:

VimpelCom, the global telecoms operator, has signed an agreement with Microsoft and Nokia that will allow its customers to use their mobile accounts to buy applications and content on the Windows Phone platform.

Under the agreement, VimpelCom customers will be able to use their mobile accounts to find, try and buy digital content from the Windows store. The cost of any applications, games or music purchased will be deducted from pre-pay customers’ phone credits, or added to subscribers’ monthly bills.

VimpelCom will create its own virtual “shelf” to help customers find digital content in the Windows store, some of which will be tailored to local services.

I wonder what form this “shelf” will take. If it’s yet another operator attempt at a walled garden, it’s doomed to be dead on arrival. But if the parties involved are smart about it -- a very big IF -- it could turn into quite a useful tool for consumers.

Whatsapp: Why we don’t sell ads

http://pocket.co/s8ubM

Makes sense.

Long-term growth for mobile app companies

In the long run, we're all dead, said John Maynard Keynes once.

Tom Clayton of Bubble Motion writes on Techcrunch how Facebook specifically and more generally, other apps/companies that want to make it in mobile, can avoid death and instead position themselves for sustained growth.

The short answer? Cater to the feature phone users who still form the majority of mobile phone users in the world today by working with telecom operators.

Note that his advice is meant for those who have BIG ambitions and are ready to play the long game. If you want to be the fastest growing coupon company focused on iPhone users in Singapore who like croquet... (keep adding your own sub-classifications) you don't need to follow his advice.

Business opportunity for mobile game developers

Mobile gaming companies in Bangalore or other parts of India who have content that they would like to expose to a large, established base of paying subscribers in emerging markets, please ping me.

Seeking telecom salesperson or channel partner

High-growth firm seeks salesperson with telecom background. Must be a self-starter with minimum ten years of experience and extensive contacts with telecom operators in Asia and/or other emerging markets. Channel partners will also be considered. Attractive upside offered including commissions and ESOP. No recruiters pls.